US action in Venezuela shows the world is now ruled by a hard power (Uday Kotak)

Kotak Mahindra Bank founder Uday Kotak has linked U.S. military action in Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolás Maduro to an intensifying global race among nations to gain “hard power,” particularly control of strategic resources.

In a January 4 post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), Kotak suggested that the U.S. strike reflected Washington’s desire to secure Venezuela’s vast energy assets. “The United States is taking control of Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world. As I said in my year-end reflections, we are in a world of hard power and the race between nations is on,” the veteran banker wrote.

Kotak’s remarks come amid dramatic geopolitical developments in Latin America after the United States launched a military operation on January 3 that resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. Both were flown to New York, where U.S. authorities said Maduro would face long-standing criminal charges.

In his year-end reflections published earlier, Kotak warned of a global shift from cooperation and dialogue to more transactional and force-oriented international relations. He argued that the world is increasingly less tolerant of divergent viewpoints, more socially divided, and increasingly dominated by hard power rather than soft power.

“Less in-person interactions, environmental decline and pollution, wider divisions within society, less tolerance for alternative viewpoints, more ephemeral and transactional relationships, domination of hard power over soft power,” Kotak wrote, adding that competition between nations is intensifying “less concerned with consequences.”

Following the operation, US President Donald Trump publicly confirmed that Washington would take control of the Venezuelan administration, at least temporarily. “We are going to lead the country until we can make a safe, appropriate and wise transition,” Trump said at a news conference, without providing a timetable.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven reserves of crude oil, a factor that analysts say has long determined U.S. strategic interest in the country. Kotak’s comments underscore growing concern among global economic and political leaders that geopolitical competition for resources is accelerating, with force increasingly determining outcomes.